[comfortablynumb]

The previous few posts reminded me of a hilarious scene from "Phas gaye re Obama":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9vsGLF5_Y0

Cheers,
Vikram

[Thad E Ginathom]

Time to repeat my rant that professional writers in the English-language media are often barely literate in the language. With so much English proficiency in this country, it amazes me that the newspapers cannot employ it! Almost all the people I converse with speak English at least as well as I do, and some are much better educated in the theory.

Ranting aside, here's a linguistic curiosity...

The recent news has been full of clean chits. Chit is an Anglo-Indian word, now very much a part of Indian English. The English idiom is clean sheet, but if I say this here, maybe people will think I'm talking about laundry.

So the English idiom must have got combined with the Indian-English word to create the valid Indian-English idiom.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

The recent news has been full of clean chits. Chit is an Anglo-Indian word, now very much a part of Indian English. The English idiom is clean sheet, but if I say this here, maybe people will think I'm talking about laundry.

I don't think "clean chit" and "clean sheet (slate)" mean the same thing. The former is an exoneration; it indicates the lack of anything suspicious in one's past. Whereas the latter acknowledges past transgressions with a resolve to start afresh.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by binand

I don't think "clean chit" and "clean sheet (slate)" mean the same thing. The former is an exoneration; it indicates the lack of anything suspicious in one's past. Whereas the latter acknowledges past transgressions with a resolve to start afresh.

You are right! Well there goes my theory on that one.

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

You are right! Well there goes my theory on that one.

Although you fell short of being given the etymological clean chit, you can always start with a clean sheet (isn't that a clean slate actually?) and keep contributing .

[Thad E Ginathom]

I still think clean sheet may have been the inspiration for clean chit. It's too much of a coincidence.

I've been here 15 years. I wonder if people in England find my English has become Indianised. The only thing that I know shocks some, is the use of on and off as verbs, which I picked up from an Indian-origin girlfriend before I even moved here.

My gripe of the day is normalcy. The word is normality! I suspect that normalcy has been recently invented in America, but I haven't checked yet, so I could be wrong on that one too.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I still think clean sheet may have been the inspiration for clean chit. It's too much of a coincidence.

"Chit" is probably from Hindi "Chitthi", meaning letter. I imagine the etymology of the phrase goes back to the days when the bureaucracy generated reports commending or censuring entities. A clean one would indicate a favourable report; and a dirty one, one assumes, would be unfavourable to the party seeking such a letter or report.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by binand

"Chit" is probably from Hindi "Chitthi" ...

Exactly what Google told me

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

The only thing that I know shocks some, is the use of on and off as verbs

Dear Thad, can you share a sentence or two to illustrate this. It will help me learn. Thanks.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Don't forget to off the light when you leave the room!

Is this a Tamil thing maybe? My wife ons and offs things, and so did my last girlfriend in London. It should make an English-language pedant cringe to their bone marrow, but I've got used to it!

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Don't forget to off the light when you leave the room!

Is this a Tamil thing maybe? My wife ons and offs things, and so did my last girlfriend in London. It should make an English-language pedant cringe to their bone marrow, but I've got used to it!

Not just Tamil, it is used all over the country!

More common in Hindi-speaking states is 'open the fan'. When I first heard it from a colleague, I said I neither had a stool nor a screw driver to do that, much to his bewilderment!

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

Not just Tamil, it is used all over the country!

I thought so: I was surprised to be asked. In fact, the mentioned girl friend was a Malaysian of Keralan origin.

More common in Hindi-speaking states is 'open the fan'.

Never heard that --- but I don't think I've spent more than one week in a Hindi state!

Here's another of my current bugbears. Seen on the forum and in the media: completely damaged. Those words don't fit together as an English idiom. Hard to explain why, but that's the nature of idiom, that very often it just is. Or isn't.

Badly damaged would be fine, as would completely destroyed, but not completely damaged.

.

[srishiva]

I haven't seen many people use on/off as verbs. Its what we call 'Butler English'. My kid used it and got some scolding when she was very young once. Its not used enough for it can become normal

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Don't forget to off the light when you leave the room!

Is this a Tamil thing maybe? My wife ons and offs things, and so did my last girlfriend in London. It should make an English-language pedant cringe to their bone marrow, but I've got used to it!

Thank you TEG. Understood. We tend to say or write in English the way we say it in an Indian language. Hence 'on the fan' ie 'pankha khol do' or my favourite 'would you like to drink a cigarette' from 'bidi piyo ge?'.

If we don't learn the correct grammer in our formative years we never unlearn our errors thereafter. I observe it in my wife's Hindi and it helps me fully understand your cringe factor. My English got through with pass marks only because of some strict Anglo-Indian teachers in one of the 6 schools I attended who walloped me till I got it into my system.

Thanks to all of you who keep this thread alive and entertaining.

[swissknife]

Talking of thinking in another language and expressing in another, here is an example of something that stumped me.

I will come to meet you tomorrow.

What the person meant was, he had come to meet me the previous day. "kal" is both, yesterday and tomorrow, in hindi.